bugs

[David Vaughan]

I forgot to mention the sixth actor, although alluding to it in my  
very first line below: inverse time.

David

On 10/04/2006, at 10:21, David Vaughan wrote:

>
> On 10/04/2006, at 2:37, Geoff Canyon wrote:
>
>> The question is this: what do you think is the upper limit for  
>> _completely_ bug-free code?
>
> Was your code bug-free the first time you wrote it, no typographic  
> errors or any other changes? Do not answer that because it is only  
> a lead-in to the next comment, that the upper limit is for code  
> which can be made bug free with reasonable economic effort, and  
> that is in my view controlled by the number of people involved.
>
> Your script worked well because you (I presume) conceived the  
> requirement, the design and the implementation and it was self- 
> documenting in that the descriptive text carries import to you  
> which it may not for other people. I take it for the moment that  
> you are also the user.
>
> To the extent that you introduce new actors at any one of those  
> five roles, you will increase the probability of bugs both arising  
> and persisting.
>
> I have some small to complex stacks which to the best of my  
> knowledge are bug free, but no-one else uses them, they are  
> substantially undocumented, and the design and usage pattern are  
> perfectly matched, both being through me. I have little doubt that  
> use by other people might expose real bugs and absolutely no doubt  
> whatsoever that those other users would raise as bugs points which  
> I considered to be "obvious" design choices or usages.
>
> I have also a fairly complex stack with at least one obvious bug  
> but I know about it and work around it because that costs me less  
> effort, even on a regular basis, than investing in fixing that  
> stack compared with my other development priorities which are  
> themselves way below my other life priorities (reiterating for  
> those who have not read it before that I do not develop software to  
> order nor for product). Eventually, it will irritate me enough and  
> I will have the spare time so I will fix it.
>
> The last part was a bit of a digression. The main answer is that  
> bugs arise less from code size than from the count of actors in the  
> five steps from concept to use. A sufficiently complex project  
> conceived, developed and used by a single person will merely not be  
> finished while the development bugs are being ironed out. :-)
>
> cheers
> David
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